Oily scum was treated by hydrothermal dewatering (HTD) under 120-240°C. The changes of surface characteristics and physico-chemical structure of oily scum were investigated and the effect of temperature on the properties of the hydro-char obtained from oily scum was analyzed through different characterization techniques. Results show that the moisture content of HTD treated hydro-char decreases as the temperature increases, which implies that the oily scum can be dewatered and upgraded through HTD method. The morphologies of the HTD pretreated oily scum present less oil content, smaller particle size, and become darker. As the reactor temperature increases from 120 to 240°C during the HTD process, the moisture content of hydro-char obtained decreases from 35.51 to 11.31%, while the liquid content and hydro-char content increase from 58.53 to 79.76% and from 2.50 to 5.29%, respectively, and the released gas content slightly varies in the range of 3.14 - 4.31%. The breaking and gathering effects of the HTD upgrading on oily scum result in a wide particle size distribution of products, which indicates that the overall structure of raw oily scum has been destroyed. With the increase of HTD temperature, the shorten vibration of methylene groups in hydro-char products is weakened.